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Chapter 33
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The 5th Wave, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trust and Belief
Survival and Perseverance
Warfare and Dehumanization
Family
Summary
Analysis
Cassie tells Evan more about the soldiers who came to Cassie’s refugee camp, and Evan disagrees with her theory that they’re secretly aliens, believing instead that they’re just humans who are collaborating with them. Evan doesn’t even know what to call the aliens, so Cassie mentions how her dad just used to call them Others.
The name “The Others” emphasizes how much the aliens are different from humanity. Still, it isn’t necessarily an insulting name, reflecting how Cassie’s dad was more open-minded about the possibility that the aliens might have come to Earth for a more benevolent reason.
Themes
Cassie wants to get going, feeling that it’s not safe to stay in one place, but Evan tries to convince her she needs more rest to heal. Cassie insists she needs to go to Wright-Patterson immediately to look for Sammy, and she starts to cry about letting him down. Evan comforts her, and Cassie stays another night.
Cassie is used to being independent, but her injury prevents her from acting on her own as she usually does. And so, Cassie learns that sometimes she has no choice but to rely on other people, complicating her belief earlier that she has to view every other human as a potential enemy.
Themes
